


take a breath (let the rest come easy)

by secretlyhuman



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M, Tattoos, background dianetti, charles is a blogger, holt is the only one who is a cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 11:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: Amy was proud of everything she’d done. In the past ten years she’d graduated college, finished her apprenticeship and opened her own tattoo parlour in a Brooklyn brownstone.Or how Amy Santiago made her own family.





	take a breath (let the rest come easy)

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this is from Dear maria count me in by All time Low but I might still change it because I'm an indecisive little shit. 
> 
> This is the longest thing I've ever written and I was trying something new so I hope it's alright. The bits in italics are in the past and the bits that aren't are in the present, I hope it reads okay. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Amy was proud of everything she’d done. In the past ten years she’d graduated college, finished her apprenticeship and opened her own tattoo parlour in a Brooklyn brownstone. And so, by her thirtieth birthday, she felt something approaching happiness, the pure kind that occurs without catches or doubts.

 

“Wow, that’s really something girl.” A new client entered the waiting room, eyes immediately drawn to the large impressionist piece that covered her upper arm and shoulder. The new woman was average height, with longish brown hair and a jumper that appeared to have an angry unicorn on it. Amy didn’t know what to make of her.

“It’s by Ray Holt, he doesn’t work here but I can give you his details. He’s booked way into August though, just to warn you.” She reeled off the information, used to the attention the piece of art attracted.

“And leave you here alone, without an assistant.” The girl said it with complete confidence, like she was doing Amy a favour. Confusion spread through her, she had placed an ad for an assistant but she’d only placed it this morning, wasn’t really expecting any applicants until the day after tomorrow. On top of that she’d explicitly said in the ad, that at this stage in the hiring process applications were online only. She looked up at the newcomer, brow furrowed as she tried to work out what was happening. In response the woman held out a hand to shake. “Gina Linetti, nice to meet you.”

 

Despite their initial meeting, Amy and Gina formed a fast friendship. Gina, Amy quickly realised was wicked smart, she did necessary paperwork quickly and put the few customers in those first few days at ease almost more than Amy did. The two women didn’t see eye to eye on much, but Amy enjoyed having someone to share the space with. After a while they even began to feel comfortable around each other.

 

…

 

_Amy would always remember the first tattoo she ever saw. She had been at the beach when she was seven and a tall, blonde women had walked past.  The women had worn an angry smear of red lipstick but what had really captivated Amy was a small rose on her arm. It was blackwork, done in lines and dots, directly on the centre of the woman's upper arm, no more than ten centimetres long. On the petals was a hint of red, subtle enough it looked like the colour was barely staining the skin. Amy thought the woman looked magical._

 

…

 

One problem Amy had at the parlour was her lack of regular artists. She had some guys who hired studio space on the days where they weren’t needed elsewhere but she longed for someone else to share the space with. Amy was tired of always being alone. Hiring Gina had helped, she thought, but it wasn’t the same as having another artist in the space.  

 

It was a Wednesday when Rosa first walked into the store. She took in the black and white linoleum and comfy chairs of the waiting room and stood at the desk, arms folded. A flustered looking woman came from the back and stopped when she saw Rosa standing there. They paused for a second before she took the portfolio of work out of her bag and placed it precisely on the counter before turning and leaving. Amy stood confused for a second before picking up the folder. She flicked through it, the first page was an application for a permanent space in the studio, the next were pictures of her work.  Her style was more traditional than Amy’s, all thick lines and flat colours, and she thought it would add some diversity to the ange of work the parlour could offer. The last page featured two things, typed neatly in a generic serif font, a name and a phone number.

Amy heard the bell of the door ring and looked to see Gina holding lunch. “Oh, did Rosa drop by?”

“Hm?” Amy didn’t know  if Gina’s Rosa was the Rosa of the portfolio she was holding and none of it had quite sunk in.

“Tall, curly hair, scary looking.” Gina seemed unaffected by her confusion, moving through the studio to unpack.  She realised, in fact, they were the same Rosa and Gina had clearly set it all up. (And she would never admit it but she was thankful Gina had.)

 

By the end of the day she had called Rosa and offered her a trial seat in the parlour. By the end of the week they had decided to make it permanent. They still weren’t exactly friends, as Rosa was the most closed off person she had ever met, but they got along. Now the parlour was mostly filled and she felt like she had been right to chase her dream, like maybe it was all going to work out.  

 

…

 

_All of the Santiago children liked tattoos, much to their father’s pride and their mother’s dismay. So by the time that Amy Santiago turned eighteen all of her seven brothers had ink somewhere on them. Ever since they were little all eight of them said they would get something together, one thing that would bring them together no matter where they were. A week after her birthday the day came, seven of them piled into the local studio and went through it one by one._

 

_(Jaime, the sixth Santiago sibling, was doing a summer abroad in London was with them through the magic of skype and promised he would get his when the studio nearest him opened the next morning.)_

 

_Amy left the studio with three dots permanently drawn on the back of her left knee. A morse code “S”. When they were children their grandfather on their dad’s side had taught morse code to each new Santiago child. As they got older they developed a simpler code. If you sent three dots to a sibling while you were out it meant rescue me. They tapped it to each other on the edges of tables and drew it on the edges of notebook. For the Santiago siblings three dots was equal in meaning to saying “I love you”, and according to several of them less sappy and gross._

 

_As she got older, often she forgot about the dots on the back of knee. But, when she needed them, (or, more accurately, needed her brothers) they were always there.)_

 

....

 

Ever since she’d hired Rosa, her friday nights had consisted of Rosa and Gina dragging her to parties that she didn’t really want to go to. The first few times Gina had insisted it was for science, to discover the pattern in the Santiago drunkenness scale, but she’d stopped after a while just insisting that Amy needed to loosen up a bit. This one had turned out okay, they were at some Brooklyn night club, lights flashing purple with music she could feel in her bones. If she had counted correctly (which she had) she was at about three on the scale, maybe verging on a four and she wanted to dance. And also maybe kiss a stranger.

 

(She would have danced with Rosa or Gina but they were definitely in the bathroom fucking and thinking she hadn’t worked out their secret. Anyway, she couldn’t kiss either of them and she was definitely at the edge of a four on the scale.)

 

The edge of the barstool cut into the back of her legs as she scanned the room to find someone to dance with.  She saw a guy from across the room. He was tall and slim, with curly, brown hair. He had on a flannel rolled up to his elbows and she could see a tattoo wrapping around her forearm. She wobbled over on a pair of heels Gina had insisted she wear and stood a little too close to the stranger. She could feel his eyes on her so she took his hand and pulled him onto the dancefloor.

 

The music was too loud and Jake knew that tomorrow he would have a killer headache but as he danced with the dark haired girl he couldn’t bring himself to care. She was a little taller than him in dangerous looking heels and a short dress with long sleeves, some colour slipped from the neckline on the left, suggesting a tattoo he couldn’t see. She might actually have been the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. She had instigated it but he was cautious to make sure that she was comfortable as the space between them shrunk.

“Hi, my name’s Amy.” Her voice was loud and warm against the shell of his ear and her hands felt heavy on his waist. It felt strange to do something so mundane when they had skipped straight to dancing so closely. He whispered his name back and felt her shiver at the ghost of his breath on her skin.

 

He didn’t think it was possible but they got ever closer as they kept dancing. It was nice and intimate in a way Jake wasn’t used to. I should go out more he thought, especially if this happens again. While he thought about how nice it was to have her pressed against him she realised she’d reached a solid four on the scale. The guy she was pressed against, Jake he had said his name was, was a good dancer and she wasn’t, she thought she may have stepped on his feet a few times but he didn’t seem to mind. She wanted to keep dancing but mostly she wanted to take him home with her. She realised he was looking at her, reactions slowed by alcohol and she decided to breach the final inch of space between them. She lowered her mouth onto his and kissed him, surprisingly softly considering the intensity of their dance.

 

“You're drunk.” Jake had pulled away from her and was looking at her through dark lashes, concern written across his face.

“So.” She pouted, she knew she was being childish and would regret it in the morning but she liked him. He was pretty and his mouth tasted like sugar and mint.

“So you’re drunk, do you have a safe way home.” As they kissed he’d tasted tequila on her breath and he was way less drunk than her in that case. She pouted at him again and mumbled something under her breath.

 

And then she walked away.

 

…

 

_Her abuela had been the one that told her to study art at college. Her mum had told her to study medicine like she’d wanted when she was seven, because after all she was so good at science and wouldn’t it be a waste if she didn’t. Her father told her it didn’t matter what she took as long as she got sixty credits so that she could join the police academy, just like he had a few weeks after his twenty first birthday. But her abuela believed in her. Her abuela had told her she would get many chances to achieve what she wanted , so why should she fight it._

 

_Amy had picked a double major fine art and business. She hated business but it made her parents happy and she knew it would be useful. But really the parts of the week where she felt the best were always her studio classes. She loved the feeling of making something, watching the picture take shape in front of her.  All through college she dreamt of the day when she could leave, could finally start to make her own way. She wanted to prove her abuela right, to prove that all the people who said she couldn’t do it were completely wrong._

 

....

 

The studio had one more empty chair and Amy hated it. The worn leather was cold to the touch because no one fucking sat in it. The space around it should have been filled with ink and carefully parcelled needles but instead it was empty, barring a few bobby pins and the glitter that Gina seemed to leave everywhere.  To manage the strange hatred she had for the empty chair she put out more and more ads, waiting for anyone to respond. (Maybe not quite anyone, she’d had a few scratchers pretending they had formal training and they were all solid nos.)

 

After a few months of ads, she’d got an email from the local tattoo blogger, Charles Boyle. The email was short and had far more exclamation points than she deemed appropriate but she trusted his judgement. All the email said was that he’d seen the ads and that she would love “Jakey”. She clicked on the link attached to a new portfolio. The pieces were new school style, they all felt animated, like if she looked away for too long they’d move. It wasn’t a style she saw much of and she instantly warmed to the idea of “Jakey” working at the studio. (His real name hadn’t been anywhere on the document, just a phone number and the name Peralta.) At the end of his portfolio he also attached a reference from Terry Jeffords, which made Amy warm to the stranger even more. She’d got a tattoo from Terry before and trusted his choice in apprentices.

 

She’d called him while looking at his portfolio once more. He sounded kind of goofy over the phone, a little like he’d only just woken up but that didn’t deter her. They organised his interview the start of his trial period for the next monday and Amy never would have admitted it but she was excited. Over the day, she kept coming back to the portfolio file, trying to work out which piece was her favourite. His work almost had a sense of humour about it, and there were plenty of pop culture references, which would be a hit with people who came to the studio for their first tattoo. Bythe end of the day she’d decided which piece she liked best. It was a drawing, rather than a tattoo, of Bruce Willis  at the end of Die Hard the words “Yippie Ki-Yay” written underneath in a script that was just a little messier than she would have drawn it. Everytime she looked at his work she came back to that piece. She realised she was looking forward to meeting Peralta and went home feeling a strange kind of warmth.

 

…

 

_Amy knew if she was going to start tattooing she didn’t just want to apprentice with anyone. She wanted to apprentice with Ray Holt. He was an ex police captain who’d left because of the discrimination he faced as a gay, black man on the force. He’d worked with her father in the eighties and he was something of a legend in their neighbourhood. He ran a parlour called the ninety-ninth tattoo studio and was the man who had trained Terry, the other major local tattoo artist. Her abuela liked his work. He’d done Amy’s half sleeve after her abuela’s death_

 

_Basically, he was a legend._

 

_Amy knew if she was going to do this she had to do it the best, and there was no doubt about it Ray Holt was the best. So she worked. She drew and she painted and she worked. She applied three times and each time she did he rejected the application. He said himself that he rarely took on apprentices. Each time she got rejected it stung a little more. When she prepared her application for the fourth time she knew it would be the last time, was ready to submit it to someone else, Jeffords maybe, it wasn’t like Holt was the only good artist. But clearly four was Amy’s lucky number, he emailed her back with a polite acceptance._

 

_For the first time it felt to her like maybe it was all within her reach._

 

…

 

Amy knew a few things about Peralta: that he liked Die Hard, was friends with Charles and Terry and was a good artist. What she didn’t know was what he was like or how he looked or even his full name. She had a few hopes, that he’d be tall, smart and charismatic, but she realised most of those she hoped for selfish reasons. What she hadn’t hoped for was the reality of the man she hadn’t yet found out was Jake Peralta. She didn’t expect to walk into her own waiting room to find the boy from the nightclub that she’d completely embarrassed herself in front of.

 

“Hi. Is Amy Santiago around, I’m here to stick some needles in some people.” He addressed her but clearly hadn’t yet recognised her.

 

The small part of Amy that kissed strange men at nightclubs thought Jake looked even better in the soft, fluorescent lighting of her waiting room. The sensible, professional part of her was already blushing at the idea of working with him. He was in another flannel but it looked more worn in the light than it had in the club. The sleeves were rolled up and she could see his tattoos more clearly, they were all floral, mostly line work with splashes of colour. Apart from a peony - clearly the work of Jeffords, with it’s thicker lines and bright colors - that sat directly in the crook of his arm.

 

“Hi. I’m Amy Santiago.” He turned more towards her smiling, before his eyes widened for a second as he realised that they had met before.

“I’m Jake.”  He stepped closer, leaning in a little and lowering his voice. “Look, if you think this would be weird I can leave but I really like your work so please let me stay.” He looked at her with puppy dog eyes for a second before Gina walked through the curtain. “No way, Goose, you work here to!” He ran to her and they started talking so quickly Amy could barely understand them.

 

She wanted to say that he didn’t actually work there and yes, it would be weird, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to. Maybe the studio needed someone like Jake anyway, her and Rosa definitely didn’t do the same work as him. Maybe, she thought, this would be good for her. But, none of reasoning was to day with his soft eyes of the curls of hair that fell into his face, none at all

 

…

 

_When she brought home art pieces,impressionist ones had always been her abuelas favourite. She liked the colours and the precision of it all. Above her bed her abuela had a poster of starry night and over the course of a few years Amy had got her different, lesser known paintings to enjoy. But, Amy thought, that didn’t matter because her abuela was dead now._

 

_It had been natural, a slow drift into nothingness. She went to sleep with an abuela and woke up without one. What really got to Amy was that she never got to say goodbye. She hadn’t been able to sleep that night in her sterile college dorm, so she’d stayed up studying. It hurt that two of her brothers had said goodbye and she hadn’t even if they didn’t know their goodbye was permanent.  She was just so frustrated she was only in Manhattan, she could of been home and she wasn’t. Amy didn’t know what to do with herself._

 

_So she drew._

 

_She drew a swooping blue sky. She drew thin yellow lines to show the stars she didn’t want to see. She drew a New York skyline in heavy black shapes, the central building being her abuelas house. And she realised as she drew that maybe she could still carry parts of her abuela with her._

 

…

 

If, after she hired him, you asked Amy Santiago what she thought of Jake she gave a very careful, organised answer. The kind that lacked all emotion. She would mention his skill and passion for his job or the fact he always made her laugh. What she would never mention was nightclubs or his eyes. Gina knew Amy’s answer because, like the good friend to Jake that she was, she had asked. (Several times, almost to the point where Amy got suspicious but not quite.) Gina had known Jake since they were pudgy little kids, annoying there mothers so recognised the fact that he had a crush on the other artist. She also knew about the nightclub incident, as Jake referred to it, because he’d called her after it happened and she’d put two and two together.

 

It was another Friday night and Gina was dragging Amy to another bar. This one was called Shaw’s and it had become the bar they went to celebrate or if, on a Friday night, Gina didn’t have any other ideas. That night was a combination of the two, Gina hadn’t planned anything and Jake had been part of the studio for three months. Amy dressed up for once, in her one pair of insensibly high shoes and a tight bandage dress she only wore when her other nice clothes were in the wash. Jake had also dressed up, wearing his favourite flannel shirt. They both pointedly avoided looking at each other too closely, hiding themselves within a healthy amount of denial.

 

The squad got drunker and drunker in their booth at Shaw’s. Jake and Amy on one side, Rosa and Gina on the other. As the night progressed the two women got more openly affectionate and Jake and Amy both relaxed slightly more into each other. Soon they devolved into a childish game of truth or dare.

“I dare you to kiss Rosa.” Jake was slightly slurring his words and Gina wrinkled her nose, reactions slightly dulled by the alcohol. “You’ve done it before, we both know, do it.” He drew out the last word while she rolled her eyes. Rosa pulled her in, faster than Jake and Amy’s eyes could follow, and kissed Gina somewhat sloppily, just long enough to make them both slightly uncomfortable.

“Alright, I regret asking.”

“Jake, truth or dare.” Gina grinned at him, all teeth and messy lipstick smugness written across her face.

“Dare.”

“Kiss Amy.” He spluttered in protest, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss her, he definitely did, but not like this in a room that smelt of stale beer with their friends watching.

“Jake.” He turned to her and she looked at him almost the same way she had the night they met. “It’s alright.”

She kept looking at him and he could hear Gina cheering and Rosa calling him a chicken and suddenly everything seemed a little loud and a little close. He couldn’t do it. He got up from the booth and backed away a little, not able to break eye contact with Amy not completely.  She was to special for this, for kissing on dares. So, mirroring what she had done the first time they met, he turned and walked away.

 

…

  


_The last guy Amy had dated was called Teddy. They were both taking studio arts and he was safe and warm. He had sandy blonde hair and a sharp jaw, and if his nose wrinkled whenever Amy mentioned becoming a tattoo artist she could ignore it. They’d met at a bar on campus, on one of those grey nights where it felt like the whole college was crammed in. She ended up on a barstool next to him._

 

_There was never really a spark between them but that didn’t really matter to her then, he was the kind of guy she could imagine bringing back to her parents.  He made her feel special in a way she didn’t know that another person could. Whenever he slept in her bed. The pillow he used would smell of roses and charcoal.  She wrote him into her lists and knew she could depend on him. Dating Teddy came with no anxiety, even if he had weird underwear and didn’t think tattoos were real art. She loved him and he loved her and for a while they were happy._

…

 

She followed him out of the bar, wobbling on stupid fucking shoes. She felt so goddamn stupid, it would have been fine if she hadn’t opened her mouth, but she knew she’d blown it all. Clearly, Jake didn’t feel the same and that was okay but she could have punched Gina for even bringing it up.

“Jake.” He turned, still a few steps in front of her, and looked at her with wide eyes. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said anything but it’s alright. Please come back.” He took a few steps towards her and her mind filled the silence with the fact he probably hated her now.

“It’s not alright, Ames.” His mind was racing, she’d followed him, maybe he could do this right.

“Wha-” She started to speak but was cut off by his mouth on hers. It was everything it had been the first time and more she thought. Kissing Jake Peralta was so much better than kissing Jake, the random guy in a nightclub. She must have started moving at some point because soon her back hit rough brick but her connection to Jake hadn’t broken so she didn’t really care. The kiss was messy and warm but his hand was anchored to her waist and for a second Amy felt like she’d been wasting time up until this moment, where was the point in doing anything else when she could be kissing him.

 

His apartment was two blocks away and she thought they might have broken a few traffic laws to get there quickly, He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on her thigh making little circles. They made their way to his bedroom and their night at Shaw’s felt years away. He looked at her like she was special like he couldn’t wait to touch her and she fell into him like it was always meant to happen. It was quick and hot and messy but there was no awkwardness, no delay. She thought maybe there would be worse things to do than to sleep in Jake’s bed.

 

The awkwardness came the next morning, when she woke up in an unfamiliar room with her dress on the floor curled around Jake Peralta. She woke up before he did and doubt started to fill her mind. Maybe he just did it because he was drunk. Maybe he did it and would regret it. The maybe’s twisted like vines and she couldn’t escape them. So she picked up her shoes and her dress and got an uber back to the bar in a pair of yoga pants and one of his t-shirts. (She’d kept yoga pants at his place after an incident with some polish food while watching cop films.) She drove back to her own apartment thinking that maybe there were worse things, but maybe that wasn’t enough.

…

 

_Teddy had never pressured her, not really, but he’d always been suggesting things. He suggested that she should focus more on painting or that she should relax more. After they’d been seeing each other for a while, he suggested that they should sleep together. Amy wasn’t sure, she wanted it to mean something. Amy liked to be sure more than she liked his idea. It wasn’t to say they’d never done anything, just nothing that required being fully undressed and vulnerable._

 

_Their first time had been a little awkward. It was messy and boring. It was quick though and Amy didn’t want to think too much about why she was pleased about that. She figured maybe it would just take a while for them to click.  Teddy had enjoyed it, she thought, she almost felt closer to him now. She wondered if maybe sex just wasn’t that much for her. Time went past and he got better, but she realised sex itself wasn’t the problem, Teddy himself was._

 

…

 

A few weeks had gone by and everything sucked. Jake and Amy were talking but not about much and rarely alone. Amy was right, it had been a mistake. Something had broken and she couldn’t fix it. She made lists of ways she could or daydreamed about him doing something but it felt like they were stuck.

 

And then she met Sophia.

 

There was a stranger in Amy’s waiting room. The stranger had dark hair and no visible tattoos. She wore a smart blouse and shoes that made Amy wince.

“Hey babe, I got you some lunch. Want to come for a walk with me?” The stranger yelled.

Jake walked out from the back room and a smile broke his face.

“Sophia, I wasn’t expecting you.” Confusion spread through Amy as Jake pulled the strange women into his side. “Amy this is my girlfriend, Sophia.”

 

The confusion turned to a strange type of jealousy. In all the ways she’d planned for her and Jake it never involved another woman, especially not one as stunning as Sophia.

 

…

 

_The second tattoo Amy got was a small heart inside her elbow. A space was slashed through it, traditional letters spelling out the words “Not Your Babe” in all caps. It had hurt like hell but she didn’t regret it. Over time the colours had faded and the lines had blurred but never enough for her to get it covered up. The day she got she promised herself she wouldn’t follow any suggestions that weren’t in her best interests, no matter who made them._

 

…

If everything sucked before, everything sucked even more now, knowing that Jake was in a relationship. She picked at a peeling sticker that she’d stuck on the counter the month before. It was one of a set of a stickers Jake had made a few weeks previously. It was some stupid Die Hard reference and she hated it. (She didn’t.) She hated him. (She really didn’t.) How dare he come into her life and make it different. Something in her wasn’t the same as it was before Jake walked into her studio and never really left.

 

“Hey, Ames.” Amy turned to see Gina staring at her. “Can you move, you’re kind of bumming out my whole area?”

“You know I’m your boss, right?” She knew she was snapping at Gina for something that wasn’t her fault. It was a joke she’d made before but it lacked its usual warmth and Gona picked up on it.

“Okay, clearly we need an emergency meeting in the back room.” It was nice, Amy thought, that despite it all Gina was there for her.

 

Gina strode off to the staff room and Amy followed without complaint, both dropping into mismatched chairs. Rosa was also there, leaning against a counter and scowling, Amy wasn’t sure what she had actually been doing before Gina called a meeting.

“What’s going on, boss lady.” Both of the other women stared at her so she told them everything, from their first kiss at the nightclub to the fact he was now dating some woman called Sophia. Gina then explained to her Sophia was his ex, or had been but they’d got back together a few days after what she was now calling The Incident. Amy felt some sliver of relief, at least she hadn’t been a homewrecker but the rejection still stung.

For the first time Rosa interjected. “Look, I’m not good at feelings and crap but you can’t expect him to choose you when he didn’t know you were an option.”  
“I mean we slept together, that seems a pretty obvious sign.” Amy stumbled through the words, embarrassed to admit, even in front of some of her closest friends.

“Yeah, and then you ran away.”

“You know who runs away from things.” Gina continued Rosa’s point without a pause between them.

“Cowards.” Rosa finished and it hit Amy. She’d started it looking for the end, never really giving Jake a chance. Because of that she might have ruined it all.

 

…

 

_The end of Amy and Teddy had been slow and messy, she wished it had been faster, that she could think of the good parts without them being stained grey by the end. She remembered the final day, the way her heart sunk like a stone, the picture of a girl he showed her, the details burnt into the corners of her brain. All through it he kept calling her babe, like it wasn’t really ending. Even years later the word made her skin crawl with thoughts of her college boyfriend._

 

_He said he hadn’t cheated, that it didn’t count because they were basically broken up anyway. His new girlfriend was pretty, she was a science major, he said, and she had ambition. Amy wanted to scream, she had ambition to, just not the kind he deemed “acceptable”. She didn’t remember much after he left, just crying and Kylie’s concern. She woke up the next day expecting the sadness to hit her again and it never did. It only took a week or so for her to realise that she liked the idea of Teddy far more than she liked him. Soon he faded away from her, she washed his imprint from her skin. By the end of that month she was just glad she would never have to drink another pilsner._

 

…

 

While Amy mourned her love life, she would not let it affect her business so when Charles Boyle had offered her an interview she was filled with joy. He said he would come to the studio and they could do it there, he would bring them both lunch. (Jake had warned her the lunch would definitely be inedible so she’d stocked the fridge, just in case.) Boyle had practically snuck up on her as she hung up some posters for an aftercare balm.

“Amy Santiago! Jake’s told me all about you!” She squashed the nerves in her stomach and turned to face the squeaky reporter. He was grinning and holding a bag of food that smelt a bit like her family’s cooking.

 

She led him to the beat up staff room and they settled into wobbly chairs. He pulled some trays of food from the opaque,plastic bag.

“Jake told me you were cuban, so I thought you might want to try this.” He opened container after container to reveal more and more of her family stapes, it was the food her abuela made. The thought choked her up a little, a reminder of where she’d came from, the overly neat, kind of stubborn kid she used to be.

“Thank you so much.” The sincerity swept through her voice, more concrete than she’d expected it to be.

 

After that the conversation had been a lot smoother, Amy realised someone who was a friend of Jake was never going to be a bad person. She catalogued some of the details about him as he talked. After about an hour they’re conversation strayed from work and became somewhat more friendly. Charles told her he’d known Jake since college and that he was recently married. She told him about college boyfriend Teddy and how much it meant that he’d bought her family's food.

 

“So what’s going on between you and Jake?” The question caught her off guard and she nearly choked around a mouthful of ropa vieja.

She composed herself, straightening her shoulders and washing away the mouthful of food with some water. “I’m sorry, what.”

“I didn’t mean to cross a line.” His face softened and she could tell he genuinely hadn’t meant anything by it. “It’s just when he started working here he told me so much about you and then a month ago he just stopped. Did something happen, I’m just looking out for him.” She could see the concern on his face and she could feel the heat of hers. She hadn’t expected him to be so honest with her.

“It was my fault.” The minute the words left her mouth she knew they were true, she hadn’t accepted that before. “I’m working on it.”

Charles nodded and stood up. “Great, be good to him. I should be going, I’ll leave you the rest of this.” He smiled at her as he left, like they had some shared secret and Amy realised that no matter what Charles was now her friend to.

 

…

 

_Holt got a tattoo from each of his apprentices, their last test. Amy was terrified on the day, she was confident in her design and her ability but he was her idol and the idea of screwing up weighed heavy on her.The design was inspired by the first tattoo she ever saw, a rose on a stem, thin lines and dotwork, delicate and barely there. It hadn’t originally been for Holt, she’d thought it was too at odds with his style and no nonsense manner. But she’d drawn it in his studio and he told her that was it and she was ready._

 

_She’d made the stencil and pasted it onto a slither of space on his arm, hands shaking the entire time. Picking up the machine had finally settled her nerves, calm washing over her. This was it, she’d taken the first step and it had turned out okay. Holt when asked would say the rose was one of his favourites, like he would for all the tattoos  he got from apprentices. He really believed in Amy, in what she would go on to do._

…

 

“Jake, we need to talk.” A look of hurt flashed across his face and she watched as he seemed to shut down, usually bright eyes not dark but dull. They walked out into the alley behind the store so Gina and Rosa wouldn’t overhear and he just looked so small, Amy wanted to find all the things that caused him to look like that and protect him from them.

“Look, I know I’ve been getting less bookings than usual and things have been awkward between us but please let m-”

“Jake what are you talking about?” She had stopped him mid-sentence not knowing what he meant. It took a few seconds for the full weight of his words to sink in. “Wit, do you think I’m firing you because I’m not, I would never.” There was indignation in her voice but Jake had latched onto her words and she saw some of the usual fire return to his eyes.

“Oh thank god, what did you want to talk to me about then?”

“Us, and then indirectly Sophia, I guess.” She saw him bristle with tension again, she already regretted starting this conversation but knew they had to have it.

When he next spoke his voice was soft. “Look the way I see it there is no us, Ames. I like you and you ran and that hurt.” She felt the bitterness in his voice more than she heard it. “And the next day Sophia called me up and said we should give it ago and, i don’t know, at least she wanted me. Because it felt like you didn’t.”

“Jake.” Her voice cracked around his name. “I was just - I was scared so I did a shitty thing but I liked you, I promise.” She didn’t want to look up at him, at least if she couldn’t see him she could imagine what she was saying was well received.

“Whatever, Amy, this is very high school and I don’t want it.”

 

She heard the door close as he left her in the alley. She was shivering. When had she started shivering?  Tears rolled down her cheeks in hot droplets and fell onto the street. She could feel the edges of a panic attack so she just focused on counting her breaths. In. Out. In. Out. She managed to keep it under control but that didn’t stop the aching realisation that she’d really screwed up. She’d screwed up to the point where he was now just calling her Amy. The cold of the Brooklyn autumn bit into her but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the alley so she just sat there for a bit and cried.

 

…

 

_“You know, this guy we actually have kinda matching tattoos, so it’s probably like fate right.” Amy was sat on her best friends floor holding a plate of polish food and bitching about Jake Peralta. Kylie, her best friend, said nothing for the most part, just nodded and made affirming noises at the right times.”We both have peony tattoos from this guy called Terry Jeffords. I mean it’s what he’s known for, or whatever, but we both just have like one peony on it’s own. “ She paused to take a bite of her dinner, which so far had been mostly untouched._

_Kylie spoke for the first time in a while. “You should ask him out.” A vivid blush stained Amy’s face and she spluttered for a few seconds before she replied._

_“No. I mean why, but no.”_

_“Because you’ve been talking about him non stop since you got here.”_ _  
_ _The blush spread further, right from the top of her ears._

_“ Because he’s annoying.” She drew out the word, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean he’s not unattractive, with his stupid hair and everything. And he has nice tattoos but he also drinks orange soda and can’t write cursive or do basic math. Plus we actually met at a nightclub before he started working for me and he turned me down hard, so he definitely finds me repulsive.” Kylie looked unconvinced by the speech, which was unsurprising as Amy did to._

 

_…_

 

When Jake and Sophia broke up he came into work tear stained, his eyes wider than ever and blurry with a lack of sleep. Amy overheard him talking about it with Gina in the break room. Apparently Jake told Sophia he loved her and Sophia told him that she remembered why they had broken up. It sounded rough and Amy wished she and Jake were speaking more. In a way she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to feel everything as deeply as Jake Peralta did. The practical part of her brain needed something to do, couldn’t stand to see a friend in pain. So she emailed Charles.

 

So, after Jake finished a two hour appointment he walked into find a box of Sal’s meat supreme pizza at “display temperature” and a shy looking Amy Santiago. What Jake wanted to say in that moment was everything he hadn’t so far. That even though it had hurt he still wanted her. That one of the reasons Sophia and he broke up was their friendship. Even that if now she asked him to go out with her, even while heartbroken, he’d still say yes. But he didn’t, he couldn’t force the words from his mouth.

“Jake, I know we haven’t been talking much lately, but I emailed Charles and he said this would help.” She looked so worried, liked he might snap, he thought he almost felt bad for making her feel that way. “When Charles came round he brought me Cuban food, because you told him to. I owe you for that.” The smile she gave him was still shy but almost blinding and he felt some of the pieces of his heart knot themselves back together. How could he be mad at her when she had a smile like that?

 

…

 

_Amy got her fourth tattoo the week after she graduated college. She saw some flash in a window and she knew that was what she wanted. They were big pink peonies with thick lines and vivid colours some mandala like designs clinging to the edges of the petals. They were stunning. She knew the artist of the studio, Terry Jeffords, in a vague way, more of his work than the man himself. Her abuela had taught her that peonies meant good fortune and that flowers were the best way to cheer someone up. Amy didn’t want to admit it but she needed cheering up, her portfolio had just been rejected and she felt like she didn’t know what she was doing anymore._

 

_So she went in and Jeffords was free. The studio was clean and outfitted with soft chairs and pastel walls, it seemed completely the opposite of the artist that ran it but somehow it all fit. On the desk in the corner was a photo of him with a tall, dark women with curly hair and their three smiling children. She understood why he got so many first timers, relaxing into the chair. The buzz of the needle had distracted her and soon she was leaving with new art inked into her hip._

…

 

She got the email on a thursday. The crew had been nominated for Best Overall Studio and she had been nominated for Best Blackwork in the Brooklyn Tattoo Awards. The nominations had clearly been set up by Charles, he’d sent them to her in an email, the body of which just contained a winky face. She knew that her studio deserved it, she’d worked so hard for this but an hour later she could still barely believe it. Jake had screamed with a mix of joy and pride when she’d seen the email. Rosa had just nodded and said nice, which for her was basically equal to Jake’s pterodactyl screech.

 

The award ceremony was on a Friday. She bought a nice dress and a new pair of heels, agreed to meet the squad at the studio so they could travel together. Her dress was deep red and clung to her, she felt a bit stupid but Kylie had chosen it and she trusted her. The first people she had seen at the studio were Rosa and Gina. Rosa was in a black dress and her nice leather jacket and Gina was in a tuxedo, they looked like the perfect pair. For the first time Amy felt she was seeing them for the couple they really were.Then she saw Jake and she might have stopped breathing for a second. He had on a blue jacket hat shimmered slightly when he moved and back trousers as well as the hipster glasses he saved for special occasions. Amy wondered how she would get through the night.

 

From there it all seemed to pass by in a blur. They had their picture taken and were seated in a ballroom. Heavy lights were focused on the stage and the rest of the room was shrouded in an anonymous kind of darkness. On her table was Holt and Jeffords, so Amy knew Charles must have arranged for it to be so perfect. He kept flitting past, grinning at them, too busy organising the event to ever stay for more than a minute.

 

The first time her name was called, for the Blackwork award, she went up to the stage on unsteady legs and decided it all must be a dream. Everything was working itself out and her face hurt from smiling. Then her studio was called, the best studio in Brooklyn, the one people had voted for the most. It was then she was sure it was a dream even though she knew it wasn’t. Her heart was pounding, Jake had to pull her up to the stage to even collect the award. It couldn’t be a dream she decided, but she wanted some confirmation before she punched herself in the face. Her confirmation came in the way Jake smiled, in the way Rosa and Gina couldn’t keep their hands off each other and the look of pride in Holt’s face as she was on the stage. She could never have dreamed herself anything like this.

 

…

 

_On the day she’d opened the studio only one person had come in. She knew that it would take a while to get established but she was impatient and bored. The one customer was a man with a beard and a beanie, he looked like a typical Brooklyn hipster. He’d leant on the counter in the waiting room and her excitement turned sour. She felt more than saw the drag of his eyes up her body and had to suppress the urge to shiver._

_“Can I talk to the man in charge.” Each word was drawn out, like he didn’t want her to miss a single syllable._ _  
_ _“Well, no. He doesn’t exist. But the women in charge is right here.” Her tone was clipped but not hostile, she doubted his intentions but didn’t want to risk losing him as a customer._

_“Naw, a pretty thing like you couldn’t run a place like this.” He kept leering at her with a cheshire cat smile and she’d yelled at him to get out._

 

_She’d closed early that day and cried in the staffroom. Not for the first time she wondered whether she was making the right choice._

 

…

 

She found Jake at the afterparty, dancing with a stranger in some kind of formal hold. The stranger noticed her and decided it was better to give the two some privacy than to be in the middle of what was about to happen. He pulled her into the same type of stiff hold and they swayed their way around the dance floor, grinning at each other.

Finally, she broke the silence. “So there’s a lot of change around here.” He nodded and suddenly it hit her, rosa’s words echoing in her head. She needed to stop being a coward, to stop running. So she kissed him, soft and slow, a kiss that knew there would be more to come.

He pulled back just far enough to whisper into her mouth. “Best one yet, Ames.” And she smiled and she laughed.

 

It didn’t matter to her anymore if she was making the right choices (although it did feel like she was), because those choices got her to where she was, and right there, where she was in that moment, she was happy

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be a tattoo parlour/ flower shop au where jake is a florist and amy keeps killing his plants but then I created this plot and just ran with it. In my head Jake's nana was a florist and so he and Gina basically grew up surrounded by flowers so he has a load of flower tattoos in tribute to her. 
> 
> Also I always write Teddy as a complete assholeand I don't know why.


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